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I should have mentioned this from the beginning about this game. The characters in it are full of facial and physical expressions. For example, if you idle your character and/or your companion will start to moan (not in the sexual way!), cough or cry, in the case of Bella Monroe. A lot of times, assuming the companion is in range of the shibito, they will react, but sometimes he/she just stands there and get hit which is a minor annoyance. And after you have killed the shibito, Miyako, for example, will ask “Is it over now?”. Things like these make the game much more interactive and enjoyable in my opinion.

Chapter 8 lets you play yet another player, his name is Sol, the camera man. You can actually use him and his trusty video camera! I found it funny killing shibitos with it. But in the end, I picked up a gun instead along the way. This chapter is rather straight forward.

Chapter 9 is short but is also one of the most intense chapters, yet another spoiler! You get to actually fight the giant baby crying shibito I mentioned in previous review using Melissa Gale (Sam’s ex wife for those who forgot). The second part you are using Seigo, the guy with the rifle again, and the mission is to protect Bella Monroe to escape. It was annoying when I played it because I wasn’t quick enough protecting her from places to places. Basically if you are not fast enough, she will die, period.

And you get a very special surprise while you are doing one of the last set of sub goals for this chapter.

And finally, chapter 10 is just running around for the whole chapter, just with different characters and purposes. Nothing too special except the scenery for the second half is actually quite a sight.

Stay tune for the final review for chapter 11 and 12! I can’t wait to see the end!

Finally got a chance to play chapter 6, it isn’t a long chapter so I combined with chapter 7 as well. From the previous chapter review, I mentioned the level of difficulty raises as you progress through each chapter. But, I didn’t feel that way this time, though I still died a few times throughout these two chapters, maybe it’s either I got better at this game (lol) or some levels are just more difficult than others. I think all the playable characters are introduced, and most places are revealed (?).

There is really nothing much to say except the graphics haven’t stopped to amaze me. Chapter 7 consists of many old rusty shacks, and each one is just as detailed. I still find it too dark though and always forget to adjust the brightness to get rid of this problem. I know its part of the “atmosphere” but sometimes I have trouble finding the way.

A bit of a spoiler.

This chapter introduced some sort of boss shibito, a lot bigger and is really messed up. It cries / screams like a baby but is taller than the shibitos roaming throughout the game. I apologize i should have taken a picture of it but I was too “involved” in the game I forgot about it. Or I should say I was too intimidated by the size of the shibito and I tried to kill it by shooting him non stop and wasn’t able to. I assume its scripted to not die, at least in this chapter.

Overall, I think the story is kicking into high gear, I say that because things are getting more complicated.

Since its a long weekend in Canada, I had more time to play and enjoy the next chapter, chapter 5. This time you gain control of Sam Monroe’s ex wife, still remember who’s Sam Monroe? She actually has to deal with something harder than her ex. Talk about being fair!

Anyway, I think as we progress in each chapter, it gets slightly more difficult or at least that’s how I felt. Thus chapter 5 took me longer than I anticipated and yes I died a few times trying to experiment and figure things out. One thing that makes the game more difficult is you don’t keep your weapon when you die. So whenever you restart, you will have to play safe and hope that you get a weapon, anything, even a tea pot is better than bare fists.

Chapter 5 is by far one of the hardest chapter I’ve played. And finally, this chapter will throw at you a few puzzles here and there this time, nothing that will make your brain explode but still takes a bit of time.

Yup, its the 4th of the 12 chapter series of Siren: Blood Curse Review. Chapter 4 has introduced a new game play, not completely new but with this new character you can “snipe” or zoom-in/out with the rifle. While its nothing compare to first person shoot like Call of Duty 4. It is “enough” for this game. The crosshair is a simple transparent white circle which is adequate since its not a shooter game but a survival horror game.

This chapter’s characters all have weapons so dealing with shibitos are relatively easy now. The feeling of “survival” is not as strong with weapons, spcially unlimited ammo. The feeling of “survival” was felt strongest when I played Sam Monroe’s daughter Bella, basically you have to be completely stealthy most, if not all the time and she does not have any weapons.

And don’t forget if one of the objectives is to escape to “location a” with “someone” make sure that “someone” is actually following you. Sometimes with some incident, either scripted or by your actions, you will be separated with that “someone”. Make sure you reunite with them before proceeding. The mission objective will add that in so most of the time you should be fine but I thought I would point that out.

Finally finished chapter 3 of the 12 chapter series. First half of this chapter will let you control Bella Monroe, Sam Monroe’s daughter. Again I won’t go into the story but with her you basically have to go 100% stealth. I died twice again but at last figured out how to pass the first half of the game. The second half took place in a swampy forest. The environment is just gorgeous in my opinion with a combination of foggy and graininess similar to Silent Hill.

One thing I dislike is when you use the special sight jacking ability, the screen is split in half, even with a 40inch LCD screen (not showing off please don’t get me wrong), I still found it difficult to navigate while half the screen is occupied with someone else’s view. But sight jacking plays an important role in this game so you are basically forced to live with this or you will die even more frequently since you have absolutely no idea where the shibitos are due to the foggy and grainy environment. If you can actually see them, chances are they can see you too and right away jump at you!

I apologize for the quality of the images, I took them with my digital camera while playing the game.

Once I have it installed and I started the game right away. First impression, at least on the music, CREEPY. I started the chapter right away, my character was a high school guy for some reason in this maze looking forest somewhere in Japan. From the first cut scene, he was trying to save a girl from being killed by the dead people, or possessed people and ended up running for his own life. Ok I think I should not spoil the whole story.

Onto the game play.

The control is somewhat easy to get used to like any third person shooter. After another short cut scene from the first, I was controlling the high school kid and running for my life right off the bat. I picked up a “sake” (sake is Japanese alcoholic beverage made from rice) bottle, I was exited that I found a weapon and I jumped onto the dead person right away. Bad move, since he had a gun, I was dead after a few shots. The environment was really dark actually, I should have turned up the brightness a bit but I didn’t expect to be this dark. So after dying a few times trying to run away from the dead, I managed to find the escape path by fluke.

Dead nurses from Japanese horror games/movies are still sexy, even if they kill.

The chapter was rather short, I would say 15 minutes or even less if you could manage to find the path right away. Therefore I cannot comment much about this chapter. The next chapter is actually from the demo where you get to use the man with glasses and I expect it to be longer.

It might be too late for most of the gamers out there to read this, I bet everyone bought a copy of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots by now. But I still want to give my “two cent” after completing the game twice.

Notice I completed the game twice?

That’s an immediate PLUS for the game in terms of replay value. When you start a new game, after going through a few cut scenes you get your weapons and Drebin points that you collected from your previous game. For those who do not have the game yet, Drebin points are points for upgrading/buying weapons and Drebin is one of the characters in the game. Since you get to use whatever you have collected from before, the game play can be different the second time you play. I was using the silenced sniper rifle from the start instead of using the AK. That brought down the alert occurances by a lot and yes I am not good at being stealthy

Having the weapons also makes the game less challenging, at least on the normal difficulty level. I will soon try out the big boss difficulty, my friend told me he couldn’t even get past the scene where you have to meet up with your robot sidekick MK 2.

I played the first MGS on the original Playstation and did not find it too enjoyable and so I skipped MGS 2 and 3. It was a good game, but its just not my style at that time. Guess I have grown to appreciate MGS series finally, I’m pretty sure its not just the graphics that makes it so enjoyable. The story is amazing as well, the movie-like cut scenes are nicely done but some are too long which you will find yourself skipping 90% of them during replay. I think the length of all cut scenes combined (including the ending) is longer than the actual game play which is one of the biggest complains I got from my friends.

As for the actual game play, its mostly third person but you can quickly switch to first person during gun fights. It works pretty much just like any first/third person shooter, you can run, crouch and crawl on the floor. But, you can now hug onto walls, floors etc, and your suit will change textures and blend in with whatever you are hugging onto to increase your stealthiness. And that’s not all, most of the game is played as Snake (the character you control) alone, but there are stages where the game play is different. One example is near the end of the game, you get to control a metal gear, the game play is similar to Mech Warriors (ahh the old times ). Its another PLUS for offering different types of game play. Another new and FUN feature to the game is you can take photos (after obtaining the camera of course) of the 4 bosses called BNB (beauty and the beast) and you can save them to your hd.

This are from my personal collection:

I’m sure I have not covered all about this game but I hope you find this interesting helpful. I will definately play the game again for the third time but on a harder difficulty and try out the online game as well. There are games that you can wait until they are half the price, but I think this game is worth the $59.99(+tax). If you haven’t got a copy and you are into this type of game, please get a copy now!